


How Like a Winter

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Misunderstanding, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:36:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter is coming, and Koumyou's nights are getting longer</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Like a Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stalkerbunny](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stalkerbunny).



> Originally written for the [valentine_smut](http://community.livejournal.com/valentine_smut/) giftfic exchange 2009.

As the heat of summer faded, the wall of humidity collapsing under the determined weight of autumn, Koumyou Sanzo found himself waiting.

Granted, the nature of human existence was to wait - first for birth; then for all of life's little details: for dinner to cook, for the sun to rise, for the seasons to change; and then finally for death - but this was not usually something that weighed heavily on Koumyou. He had never been the sort of man given to anxiousness or wanderlust, even in his youth, and it was certainly not in his nature to be driven to distraction by some strange, indefinable ennui.

That was something which would have suited Ukoku's personality much better. No doubt the younger sanzo would have been deeply amused to know that his worldly condition was contagious.

* * *

Koumyou woke with a crick in his neck.

He had fallen asleep reading in bed and the book lay across his chest, forgotten in his doze. He picked it up and set it carefully in the drawer in the bedside table before trying to massage away the niggling pain. It was not the sort of reading he thought the other monks in the temple would particularly approve of. The book was a meditation, of sorts, which postulated that the divine existed only as a reflection of man's desire for an infinite existence. Koumyou found it quite interesting, but took it with a grain of salt. Ukoku had presented it to him as a gift on his last visit. On the inside cover the younger man had scrawled _"Infinite existence is more vile than divine, I would say."_

They had argued on that same visit, Koumyou reflected glumly. Ukoku had invited Koumyou to accompany him on a journey outside Shangri-la, but Koumyou had been unwilling to leave Kouryuu and his other responsibilities at the temple. That decision made him somewhat uneasy, even now; but leaving Kouryuu alone seemed a sure invitation to some unseen disaster. It was a sensation Koumyou could not explain. He had a responsibility to Kouryuu of course, but he had one to Ukoku as well, and it was beginning to trouble him more and more that the two seemed mutually exclusive.

Grudgingly, Koumyou came to realize that he was wide awake. His mind was now too troubled for reading; so instead, he decided to indulge in his pipe, hoping the familiarity and simplicity of it would relax him enough to allow him to sleep again, and slipped outside onto the walkway in his socks and yukata. The night was cool, but not unpleasant; his breath made faint silver clouds and the grass glittered in the moonlight with a thin layer of frost. Koumyou lit his pipe and watched the ghostly spirals of smoke rise into the moonlit sky.

"Don't you know you'll catch your death of cold out here, Koumyou-_sama_?"

Koumyou managed to show nothing of his surprise, though he had not expected nor sensed Ukoku's approach until the moment the other man spoke. It seemed he was becoming much better at concealing his presence. Perhaps he was becoming one with the nothingness, as Koumyou sometimes feared he might.

"I have never in my life been done any harm by a bit of cold air, Ukoku."

Ukoku materialized out of the shadows, crossing the grass almost silently but for the soft crunch of frost, and stepped onto the walkway. The smile on his face was playful, yet as always, somewhat predatory. Condensation had beaded on the shoulders of his traveling robe, as if he had been standing outside for some time.

"How was your trip?"

"Educational," Ukoku answered, with his usual air of indifference and a wave of his hand, "I forgot to bring you a souvenir though. My apologies."

Their conversation was so - typical - it was almost painful. Koumyou wondered if he had been wrong in hoping that perhaps, with time, with travel, and searching both physical and spiritual, Ukoku might find things to chase, other than the void within, or - and this was a lofty goal indeed - that he might give up chasing altogether?

Had he been wrong in trying to draw Ukoku away from that void with his own hands?

They could not continue like this forever, Koumyou knew, with Ukoku drawn towards that darkness like a moth to a flame while Koumyou tried eternally to avert his gaze. Whatever would be, in the end, would be, whether by the solemn decree of divinity or the simple force of one man's own longing.

"You must be cold, Ukoku," he said finally, crouching and tapping his pipe on the edge of the walkway to empty it. "Perhaps you would like to come in."

The chill of the autumn night chased after them, swirling through the dark room, settling in the corners like some hidden observer, unseen but acutely felt. Ukoku was uncharacteristically silent and Koumyou could feel the younger man's eyes tracking him as he sat down on the bed.

"So," Koumyou ventured, "how fares the wandering heart of Ukoku Sanzo? Has it settled any since I saw you last?"

Ukoku shucked his traveller's cloak and hung it by the door. Droplets of condensation fell to the tatami. "What makes you think my heart wanders?"

"It's a turn of phrase, Ukoku, nothing more." Koumyou resisted the urge to sigh. "You've been gone quite a while; surely you didn't come here to argue with me over simple linguistics."

"No," Ukoku said finally, rubbing at his left eyebrow as if to alleviate some pressure under the skin there, "I didn't."

"Is something troubling you?"

Ukoku laughed suddenly, throwing up his hands, "No, why would there be? I am utterly untroubled - unfettered even - _Muichimotsu_! - isn't that the principle you were so insisting on the last time I was here?"

Dismay flooded Koumyou's heart. Yes, he had begun, not long ago, to try and impress Muichimotsu upon Ukoku - but not to the ends the younger man perceived it. It was a difficult and complicated concept, it did not mean what Ukoku was so certain it meant.

Ukoku stepped to the edge of the bed, where their legs met in the cool air, looking down at him, and for the first time Koumyou was almost afraid - not for Ukoku, as he so often had been since the moment he saw a blood-washed boy weeping - but _of_ him. There was so much potential, so much power knotted up inside a man with so little understanding and experience to temper it.

Ukoku bent suddenly and kissed him, hard, demanding, but also with a certain panic. Koumyou's hand came up automatically, tangling in damp raven locks, making way for the urgent tongue that sought his own, but Ukoku pulled away as quickly as he had plunged in, standing stunned.

Koumyou knew he had little to gain from asking questions, that the answers Ukoku would give in such a state would make little sense to anyone but himself. Ukoku was forever seeking something and, in that moment, it seemed to Koumyou that he was that something.

Carefully, afraid of startling Ukoku as one might a rabbit, Koumyou stood and unfastened his kimono and let it fall to the floor, then set to work on Ukoku's robes, steady but patient, leaving them both naked in a matter of moments. His hands skimmed Ukoku's chest, stomach, searching for injury or imperfection, some physical manifestation of the turmoil he could see in Ukoku's eyes; but there was nothing. The confusion seemed to fade as they moved back towards the bed, replaced by simple lust. Skin settled on skin and Ukoku let out a long breath, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and his face transformed into one more familiar.

"If you're expecting me to make a great scene over how I 'missed you' while I was away, you'll be sorely disappointed."

"I expect nothing from you, Ukoku." Koumyou carefully removed the younger man's glasses, smoothing his hair back and kissing his unadorned forehead. "I'm certain that if I allowed myself to do such a thing, you would pride yourself on defying every expectation I set."

The aid to their progress was concealed behind a small panel in the wooden bed frame. Ukoku was in no mood for pleasantries; he allowed Koumyou to get a finger inside him, then two, stretching tender tissues, caressing nerves and slowly working the raven-haired man towards the peaceful, earthy bliss of orgasm - then he was grabbing, scratching, pinching, pulling, biting - as if he wanted to tear Koumyou apart, to consume him.

_Which of us will be swallowed up by the other?_

Ukoku didn't make a sound as Koumyou entered him; he just locked his legs around the blonde and arched his back to take Koumyou all the way in with a single movement. His eyes seemed to look through Koumyou, beyond him, though Koumyou doubted it was to a higher place - without his glasses Ukoku's vision was atrocious - he could hardly hope to see the nose on his face. Koumyou pressed their foreheads together, his breath fanning over Ukoku's parted lips, coaxing him into a deep, slow kiss.

They had never been so quiet when they made love; Ukoku had never been so simultaneously frantic and subdued. As Koumyou pushed into him slow and hard with each of Ukoku's meeting thrusts forcing his leaking erection against Koumyou's stomach in what was surely a parody of the contact he truly needed, Ukoku seemed to come back to himself, as if Koumyou's touch was reassembling him piece by fractured piece. Still, he remained so tangled up within that Koumyou would have never known Ukoku had come if not for the wet heat that splashed across his stomach and the tiny growl of pleasure that escaped his lover's lips.

Afterwards, Ukoku dressed to leave almost immediately, though dawn was still some hours off. Koumyou sat up against the headboard, watching him, trying to keep his concern tamped down somewhere deep inside.

"And where to now, Ukoku?"

"Does it matter? You won't be coming with me."

_"You could ask,"_ Koumyou almost said; however, it would have been too much like a cruel joke, so he pinched the tip of his tongue between his teeth and silently watched Ukoku leave.

In his haste, Ukoku neglected to close the shoji completely, leaving a tiny gap through which moonlight and autumn air leaked, chilling the room. Koumyou could not bring himself to get up and close it. Instead, he curled beneath the blankets, shivering, as if he lay on a bed of frost.

-End-


End file.
